Perils of the past

When I was a kid, it seemed that much of the children's programming on t.v. depicted scenes of ethnically-diverse gritty urban landscapes. Everyone knew spanish, wore hip turtlenecks and played hoops after school.

I was fascinated by their city lives. It was nothing like my own landscape.

I remember one public safety commercial that haunted me back then. It showed some kids playing in a junkyard and finding an abandoned refrigerator. They climb in, become trapped and supposedly die. I didn't understand. How could a refrigerator be so menacing? And where did these kids live that refrigerators were looming in every alley, beckoning to children; "that's it, just a little closer...".

I understand now that it was during the transition from the old latch mechanism to the new magnetic seals. Kids were dying.
Seems weird now to think that that was once a problem.

Of course, it's even weirder that online sexual predators and guns in school are the new threat. And not just in the big city.